


Descendent

by quadrotriticale



Series: Beforus Amporas [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, baby boy. baby.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 07:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15165914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quadrotriticale/pseuds/quadrotriticale
Summary: You’d expected to leave him your dozen or so castles and their carefully warded contents and your corpse, rotting somewhere under the sea. But, no, he has defied every odd you've calculated, every barrier you've put in place to keep yourself hidden, and he's here, bleeding and terrified, right at your door step. Or, rather, at your desk.





	Descendent

**Author's Note:**

> hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhomestuck? in my 2018?  
> anyway i know cronus is a fucking asshole but have you ever considered baby cronus meeting his ancestor because i have considered this extensively in my own person hell which is a neverending attachment to amporas.

He’s tiny, Lord, is he small. You can’t remember the last time you’ve seen a troll as little as him. He’s- oh, you ought to say about three sweeps, too little to know the kind of magic needed to take down your seals, too little to really be out by himself, too little to be washing into one of your castles with a weapon that doesn't work underwater, a piece of shit metal... thing, about the same size as he is. His gills don’t work right- his breathing is strange, asthmatic in a way that’s painfully familiar to you, and you recognize the shape of his horns as the shape of yours, only smaller, younger. That isn’t exactly something that’s common. He wears your sign on his chest too, and that’s when you understand that this grub, this infant that’s wandered into your hall, is of you. This is your descendant. 

Honestly, as much as you know the cycle for violets and that he really should have been coming around soon, you didn’t expect to meet him. You'd made such an effort to isolate yourself from the rest of society in your old age that it really wouldn't have made sense for you to meet this grub, really wouldn't have made sense for you to come into contact with him at all. You’d expected to be dead before he hatched, although your own predictions for your death date keep coming and going, much to your chagrin. You’d expected to leave him your dozen or so castles and their carefully warded contents and your corpse, rotting somewhere under the sea. But, no, he has defied every odd you've calculated, every barrier you've put in place to keep yourself hidden, and he's here, bleeding and terrified, right at your door step. Or, rather, at your desk, which you're sure is even more improbable than if he were to just show up at your door. He passes out almost before he can get a word off, and you’re very concerned despite yourself. You find him some place comfortable to rest, make sure he’s warm, and wait for him to wake up. 

(You happen to doze off in the meantime. Being as old as you are, you tend to spend a lot of your time asleep.)

When he wakes it’s with a start, with a shriek from his lungs and a sputtering cough, looking like he’s drowning before he figures out he’s underwater, figures out that he needs to use his gills. (You’re guessing his hive is somewhere on land, which you understand if he’s asthmatic like you think he is, like he sounds when he breathes through the water. He’ll grow out of it of course, there’s treatments for it and it generally goes away after first molt, but you still understand what he's going thorugh. You did grow up with it.) He gazes around, terrified, fish bowl glasses magnifying his greyed out irises. It takes him a second to understand his surroundings, longer still to accept that you’re not going to hurt him. You call him “little Ampora,” and when he asks you why you know his second name, you show him the waves you have tattooed on your wrist, a careful pattern in old, faded ink that used to be the color of your blood, and matches the jagged crests on his shirt. He babbles something excitedly to you about who you are, his eyes huge as he shoots up in the water, and you only just catch his name. 

‘Cronus’, he calls himself. 

(You like that.)

He’s young, and you come to understand that he’s taken up the orphaner position in your absence/presumed death. You want to kill Radi, you want to kill whoever made that decision, you want them to burn, you want them to take it back because he’s a grub, he’s three sweeps old, he’s too fucking young to be the Orphaner, he’s too young for a title and he’s too small for your gun, for the crosshairs, but you give it to him anyway because he needs it, because he’s going to get himself killed if he doesn’t have it, because you can’t stand the thought of a child going out to hunt with something that doesn't even fucking work, not again. 

You also come to understand that he has more raw power than you’ve ever seen. When he dreams, often it’s prophetic, often it’s terrifying, often it’s the same thing over and over and over again and you have to comfort him, talk to him quietly before he’s willing to tell you anything about it. You don’t push him, though, wouldn't push a grub of his age for information he's not ready to give. You’ve had those dreams too, even if they’re less frequent. You understand. You teach him chess, play with him while he asks you questions, while you tell him stories from when you were younger, from before you started hiding away in your castles. He enjoys them, wide eyed and curious and wholly innocent, and your old heart aches for him. 

(You want to protect him, you want to train him, you want to watch him grow, but he came too late and you'll too soon and you'll miss it, miss him, lose that opportunity and whatever change in outcome may have come with it.)

(You know he'll grow, you know he'll changes, but to you, Cronus Ampora will always be the child sitting across from you in your study, curiosity and fishbowl glasses and sparking magic and endless, endless potential.)


End file.
